What secrets do you have hiding in YOUR family tree? Every family has them, and in AWC graduate Kate Horan’s new mystery, The Inheritance, DNA-testing shines a light on two women and previously unspoken truths. Kate shares her experience writing the book including inspirations and real life research.
00:00 Welcome 05:21 Writing tip: StoryGraph app 09:28 WIN!: Twist by Colum McCann 11:10 Word of the week: ‘harbinger’ 12:51 Word Insights with Dean Koorey: ‘hone vs home’ 15:55 Writer in residence: Kate Horan 18:00 On writing two very different characters 20:11 Geographic and DNA inspirations 24:20 The many meanings of ‘inheritance’ 26:13 Inspiration from Who Do You Think You Are? 26:40 Complicated family dynamics 28:19 Kate’s writing process and balancing life 29:18 Managing time and prioritising as a writer 31:15 Journey to publication via an agent 35:00 Importance of structural edits 37:09 AWC courses and learning the craft 40:09 Kate’s writing tips and investing in your skills 41:33 Building a writing community 44:18 Surreal experience of getting published 45:17 Upcoming projects and future plans 47:45 Final thoughts
Kate Horan has spent the last seventeen years working in corporate communications, helping executives to pitch and present. Before that, she taught English and Drama at high schools in western Sydney where she relished inspiring teenagers with a love of reading and writing. She graduated from the University of Sydney in 2001 with an Honours degree in English Literature.
She traces her love of storytelling back to her childhood when she would listen to her father and grandfather telling stories around the dinner table. Always a voracious reader, as a child she was often in trouble for reading under the quilt with a torch after lights out, and she firmly believes bookshops are the most magical places on earth. After many years of feeling the niggle to write her own stories, she attended Faber Academy's Writing a Novel program in 2020.
When she's not dreaming up stories about complicated families with dark secrets, she's kid-wrangling her two young, high-spirited boys, listening to podcasts and walking her golden lab on Sydney's beautiful Northern Beaches.
